A Soldier of the Legion

by C. N. Williamson; A. M. Williamson

"Will it be enough for Colonel DeLisle?" Max persisted.

"I promised to shoulder all responsibility with him," repeated Stanton.

"And father would be the last man in the world to spoil two lives for a convention," Sanda added. "Do you remember his love story that I told you?"

Did Max remember? It was not a story to forget, that tragic tale of love and death in the desert. Must the story of the daughter be tragic, too? A great fear for the girl was in his heart. He believed that he could think of her alone, now, apart from selfishness. Realizing her worship of Stanton, had her fate lain in his hands he would have placed it in those of the other man could he have been half sure they would be tender. But her fate was in her own keeping. He could do no more than beg, for DeLisle's sake, that they would wait for the wedding until Stanton came back from his expedition. Even as he spoke, it seemed strange and almost absurd that he should be urging legal formalities upon any one, especially a man like Stanton, almost old enough to be his father. What, after all, did law matter in the desert if two people loved each other? And as Stanton said—patient and pleasant again after his outburst—they could have all the legal business, to make things straight in the silly eyes of the silly world, when they won through to Egypt, under English law.

The matter settled itself exactly as it would have settled itself had Max stormed protests for an hour. Sanda was to be married by the Catholic priest from Touggourt, as early in the morning as he could be fetched. The great caravan and the little caravan halted for the night. Stanton harangued his escort in their own various dialects, for there was no obscure lingo of Africa which he did not know, and this knowledge gave him much of his power over the black or brown men. The news he told, explaining the delay, was received with wild shouts of amused approval. Stanton was allowing some of his head men to travel with their wives, it being their concern, not his, if the women died and rotted in the desert. It was his concern only to be popular as a leader on this expedition for which it had been hard to get recruits. It was fair that he, too, should have a wife if he wanted one, and the men cared as little what became of the white girl they had not seen as Stanton cared about the fate of their strapping females.

The mad music of the tomtoms and räitas played as Max, with his own hands, set up Sanda's little tent. "For the last time," he said to himself. "To-morrow night her tent will be Stanton's."

He felt physically sick as he thought of leaving her in the desert with that man, whom they called mad, and going on alone to report at Sidi-bel-Abbés, days after his leave had expired. Now that Sanda was staying behind, his best excuse was taken from him. He could hear himself making futile-sounding explanations, but keeping Mademoiselle DeLisle's name in the background. None save a man present at the scene he had gone through could possibly pardon him for abandoning his charge. After all, however, what did it matter? He did not care what became of him, even if his punishment were to be years in the African penal battalion, the awful Bat d'Aff, a sentence of death in life. "Perhaps I deserve it," he said. "I don't know!" All he did know was that he would give his life for Sanda. Yet it seemed that he could do nothing.

When all was quiet he went to his tent and threw himself down just inside the entrance with the flap up. Lying thus, he could see Sanda's tent not far away, dim in the starlit night. He could not see her, nor did he wish to. But he knew she was sitting in the doorway with Stanton at her feet. Max did not mean to spy; but he was afraid for her, of Stanton, while that music played. At last he heard her lover in going call out "good night," then it was no longer necessary to play sentinel, but though Sanda had slipped inside her tent, perhaps to dream of to-morrow, it seemed to Max that there were no drugs in the world strong enough to give him sleep. He supposed, vaguely, that if a priest consented to marry the girl to Stanton, after the wedding and the start of the explorer's caravan, he, Max, would board the first train he could catch on the new railway, and go to "take his medicine" at Sidi-bel-Abbés.

Before dawn, when Stanton came to tell Sanda that he was off for Touggourt to fetch the priest, no alternative had yet presented itself to Max's mind, and he was still indifferent to his own future. But when Stanton had been gone for half an hour, and a faint primrose coloured flame had begun to quiver along the billowy horizon in the east, he heard a soft voice call his name, almost in a whisper.

"Soldier St. George!" it said.